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Friday, May 30, 2014

Seems Donald Sterling, owner of the LA Clippers is going to sell his franchise after all... to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 billion...

Shame Sterling had to give up his fight against the NBA..

Legally he would have defeated them but it would have taken years of litigation, the guy is 81, has cancer and well.. In the world of big business, money talks and there's a lot of evil spiteful malcontents who are having to shut up right now because its hard to claim victory vs a man who made out like a bandit

$2 billion with a B sale on a franchise he paid $12.5 million with an M and only valued at $575 million..

That is a 1,600% profit folks..

And all for saying in private chat to his gold-digging mulatto mistress who illegally recorded the conversation that she shouldn't take public pictures with thugs and HIV spreaders (but could sleep with them and he was OK with it)

So let's go back to Ballmer..

Now 1/15th of all the teams in the NBA are owned by former Microsoft people with Paul Allen who owns the Portland Trailblazers and NFL's Seattle Seahawks as the other..

The problem isn't really so much that Ballmer paid $2 billion for an NBA franchise..

It's the fact he could afford one.

You see if you or we made a salary of $50 million a year, it would take us working 40 years with zero going to taxes or living expenses to generate the $2 billion necessary to buy the Clippers..

Think about that.. $50,000,000 annually for 40 years!

Ballmer has a net worth of a little over $20 billion meaning his purchase only represented 10% of his money...

And for whatever reason, most people can not or refuse to grasp that concept and get G-D angry over the wealth disparity in this nation

So we thought for 'fun', we'd look and see who owns the other 28 NBA franchises.. Some will be individuals.. Some corporations.. But every owner obscenely wealthy...

And the everyday people making 5-6 figures annually while paying to watch slam dunks and alley oops couldn't seem to give a Damn over the disparity..

Atlanta Hawks -- owned by Atlanta Spirit, a sports partnership of 7 owners. They also at one time owned NHL's Atlanta Thrashers but ran the franchise to the ground then sold it to another partnership which ultimately became the current Winnipeg Jets

Boston Celtics -- owned by Boston Basketball Partners, LLC which is really 4 very wealthy men who pooled their resources together to buy the Celtics in 2002

Brooklyn Nets -- owned mainly by Mikhail Prokhorov (80% share), a Russian billionaire who made his money in precious metals such as nickel and palladium; His net worth is close to $11 billion

Cleveland Cavaliers -- owned by Dan Gilbert who is worth close to $4 billion and owns shares in many smaller sports leagues, is operator of Quicken Loans and Rock Gaming which operates casinos

Dallas Mavericks -- owned by Marc Cuban who is worth $2.6 billion and made his money initially via the stock market Dot.com bubble of the mid 1990's

Denver Nuggets -- owned by Stan Kroenke which runs Kroenke Enterprises and owns among other teams, MLB's Colorado Rockies, NFL's St Louis Rams, MLS' Colorado Rapids and is largest shareholder in English football club Arsenal... He is worth $4.1 billion

Detroit Pistons -- owned by Tom Gores who is worth $2.5 billion.. He is the founder of Platinum Equity, a global private equity firm with headquarters in Beverly Hills.

Golden State Warriors -- owned by Joe Lacob, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers which is a venture capital investment firm; He bought the team in 2010 for $450 million

Memphis Grizzlies -- owned by Robert Pera (majority owner) who is also founder of Ubiquiti Networks, a technology company. He became a billionaire when Ubiquiti went public in 2011

Miami Heat -- owned by Mickey Arison who also until recently was CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines, the world's largest cruise operator. His father co-founded it. Arison is worth nearly $6 billion

Milwaukee Bucks -- owned by Mark Lasry, a billionaire hedge fund manager, He is also the co-founder and chief executive officer of Avenue Capital Group and the co-owns the Bucks with Wesley Edens who founded Fortress Investment Group.

Minnesota Timberwolves -- owned by Glen Taylor who was a former member of the Minnesota Senate and also owns the Minnesota franchise in the WNBA. He founded Taylor Corporation, a privately held multinational printing and electronics company and is worth $1.8 billion

New Orleans Pelicans -- owned by Tom Benson who also owns NFL's New Orleans Saints and possesses a net worth of $1.3 billion. Benson became wealthy by investing profits from his automobile dealerships in local banks. He eventually purchased several small Southern banks and formed Benson Financial, which he sold to Norwest in 1996.

New York Knicks -- owned by the Madison Garden Company and led by James Dolan who's father founded Cablevision and who's uncle Larry Dolan owns MLB's Cleveland Indians

Oklahoma City Thunder -- owned by Professional Basketball Club LLC, a group headed by Clayton Bennett. He was a principal owner of the San Antonio Spurs during the 1990s. He originally purchased the team when it was the Seattle Sonics for $350mil with a good-faith promise he'd keep the team there.. Obviously he didn't..

Orlando Magic -- owned by RDV Sports INC headed up by Richard DeVos who founded Amway and is now worth $5.1 billion

Philadelphia 76ers -- owned by Josh Harris, a billionaire who made his money on Wall Street as an equity investor and owns Apollo Global Management as well as the NHL's New Jersey Devils.

Phoenix Suns -- owned by Robert Sarver who also owns Phoenix's WNBA franchise. In 1982, he founded the National Bank of Arizona then later sold it at a big profit then later acquired and currently possesses other local banks

Sacramento Kings -- owned by Vivek Ranadivé founder and CEO of TIBCO, a multi-billion dollar real-time computing company, and is credited with digitizing Wall Street in the 1980s with his first company, Teknekron Software Systems

San Antonio Spurs -- owned by Peter Holt, CEO of Holt Cat, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the United States and chairman, CEO, and owner of Spurs Sports & Entertainment

Utah Jazz -- owned by Gail Miller and Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment Group of Companies (LHMSC) Larry Miller owned a myriad of other businesses including movie theaters and auto dealerships and upon his death, his wife Gail took over ownership of the team

Washington Wizards -- Ted Leonsis, a former venture capitalist who also owns NHL's Washington Capitals, Washington's WNBA franchise and the Verizon Center. He is worth over $1 billion

So there you are.. All the owners of the NBA..

You can see why they all were so quick to pounce and destroy Sterling over nothing.. Every one had financial interests at risk in other venues if protests mounted with nearly a third owning other professional sports franchises.